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Biomorphic Software
CowboyRobot writes "From the molecular structure of spiders' silk to the efficient use of energy by insects and fish, we can learn many things from Nature and apply them to our engineering tasks.
One thing that nature is particularly good at is the development of dynamic, self-organizing systems.
Ken Lodding is a software engineer at NASA and is currently developing 'swarm algorithms for groups of wind-driven, remote exploratory vehicles'.
He has a six-page article at Queue on 'biologically inspired computing', how to develop 'algorithmic design concepts distilled from biological systems, or processes.'"
Sounds an awful lot like Michael Crichton's novel Prey. The story's description (from the above link): cloud of nanoparticles -- micro-robots -- has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive. It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour. Every attempt to destroy it has failed. And we are the prey.
I hoped that this was more fiction than reality. Perhaps Prey is going to become a movie and they are writing this up to get people interested?
Doesn't the thought of an intelligent swarm of nearly indestructible particles scare people? I know I am paranoid and all but I can't fathom the damage that could occur if these got out and were self-sustaining even for a short time.
All we need is wild packs of stray 'exploratory vehicles' rummaging through the garbage at night.
Thank you.
10 SWIM AROUND TANK
20 PRINT "LOOK A ROCK!"
30 GOTO 10
...related, is the practice of having a program interrogate its environment. Some of the most successful programs are highly portable pieces of code that check to see what OS services are available, what APIs are available, what dependency software is available, etc. and then constructs the final object tree based on the results.
While this is very difficult to do in C/C++, it's a very successful way of writing Java code. For example, a gaming timer I wrote first checks the JVM version. If it's on 1.5 it uses the new NANOTimer. If that fails, it checks the OS. If it's on Windows, it then checks for the presence of a native timer DLL. (Timing on Windows sucks.) If it fails to find and/or load the DLL, it then falls back to a clever algorithm for making the most of default Windows timing. If it's on some other OS, it uses the default timer (all OSes except windows can provide millisecond resolution without complaint).
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
After all its just an attempt to reproduce human though and decision making processes in machines.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
develop 'algorithmic design concepts distilled from biological systems, or processes.'
Since things made of meat came up with the concept of algorithmic design, isn't all computing derived from biological systems and processes.
I read things like this and can't help but thing about some alien engineers coming to earth, deciding that they don't have time to explore it properly, and plop down some solar powered "robots" to gather some data on the planet. A few millenia pass and some more alien engineers come by, having the same idea but being jerks, deciding to make "robots" that eat the solar powered "robots".
Jerks.
how to develop 'algorithmic design concepts distilled from biological systems, or processes.'
Does this mean we can expect the whole dating-and-mating process to be reduced to an algorythm? Does the average slashdotter now have reason to have hope to apsire to procreation?
Didn't they clash with the autobots?
Seems logical to me, especially for multiuser/processor networking. Nature has been "networking" bugs, fish, packs of mammals, etc. for many more years than we've been around. All that extra research time has to count for something. Now that I think about it, a hive of insects are somewhat similar to a group of computers. The individuals posess little (or no) independant thought, only giving responses to electrical or chemical signals. Interesting...
That's right, I read at +2 and post at +1. Not even I care what I have to say.
Debra Messing was HOTT in that!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
My daughters and I experimented with these last weekend. After a birthday party. Many of them only ended up exploring the neighbors' trees. They must have found the trees interesting; they're still there. (I guess that's better then them deciding to explore the power lines, though...)
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
Biomicry
There is also a book by the same name by Jenine Benyus. It's a fantastic book.
Mark Tilden has noticed that machines that mimic biology take a lot less computation resources than machines that are strictly programmed.
2 0T ilden
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Mark%
Trying to strictly control everything doesn't work well past a certain level of complexity. It's like capitalism vs communism or Cathedral vs Bazaar. I expect to see a lot more of this kind of project in the future.
Well it's not much more difficult than doing it in Java, or even bash (well unless you want to use things like class.GetMethods() etc...)
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The author refers to the Genotype/Phenotype analogue wrt to the cells in the mechanized system they built. But he keeps refering to the Genotype as being the DNA (or code) as well as the behavior of the units. While the Phenotype is the actual unit itself.
The genotype/phenotype analogue is a good one, but his terms are not quite correct. The genotype should refer to only the DNA and genetic information, which in his case is analygous to machine code. The phenotype should be analygous to the behavior of each unit.
A pedantic technicality, but he mentions this a few times, and it's not quite correct.
Neat stuff regarless!
other than felonious corepirate nazi payper liesense hypenosys stock markup FraUD phonIE monIE schemes?
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... successfully integrating newclear powered energy/information into yOUR systems, since/until forever. see you there?
I was just going to participate in this discussion using my mod points, but you've raised a very interesting point. The selection of binary logic over trinary and decimal logic was determined in a similar way. It's a lot faster and more reliable to make a lot of simple yes/no decisions than to try to make a few complex decisions. I'm not sure how to implement that philosophy in a complicated system but it is something to think about.
Enjoy being a programmer while you can.
Why do I say this? Well look at the efficiencies of simple programs that are "written" or evolved by genetic algorythms. We are just beginning to scratch the surface. I suspect that even simple tasks, like controlling a toaster, will become an evolutionary process that will be given its initial operating parameters by larger AI systems.
I think that in the future the programmer as we know them will no longer exist, instead we will have people who "teach" a program to "behave". The art of programming will become an arcane thing, much like knowing Latin, where an isolated few will actually know how to bootstrap the process from machine code to "newborn" AI. Even now with the simple AI that exists, there are systems that are virtually undecipherable as to their workings. In the future the complexity will reach levels that are beyond comprehension.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
...our new wind-driven, remote exploratory vehicle overlords.
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
Your entire nervous system works like this, as do things like active transport protiens in your cells, the majority of organelles in your cells. A whole lot of nature follows, "The individuals posess little (or no) independant thought, only giving responses to electrical or chemical signals" plan. The interesting stuff comes from emergent properties which still seem to baffle scientists. For example, your brain is a collection of basically binary gates - few than are in current CPUs - and yet we (and several other animals) exibit fascinating emergent properties like emotion, abstract thought, and pooping, that computers don't have yet. I think figuring out the mechanism behind emergent properties (besides saying, "oh, well...uhh...there's a bunch of things interacting...and this happens because they're...uh...interacting") will really propel biocomputing. Hopefully whatever engineers implement the science have an eye for ethics, as well.
and my worker threads went on strike.
10 Enter a new topic
20 Try a first post
30 POST "... ??? Profit!" joke
40 POST "In Soviet Russia..." joke
50 POST "... You insensitive clod!" Joke
60 POST "Netcraft says: $SOMEONE is dying..." joke
70 GOTO 10
This is an interesting concept, but it is hardly a new field/application. (see 'Gentic Programming', by Koza, for example. Website).
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"One thing that nature is particularly good at is the development of dynamic, self-organizing systems."
Seems to me that nature IS a dynamic, self-organizing system.
- Sig this!
For a minute there, I though that read Polymorphic Software.... but that didn't make sense; we haven't discovered Industrial Base and Information Networks yet....
That's right. All your base.
This sentence in the article was rather creepy to me:
With minor exceptions, each cell contains the information to become any one of the 256 or so types.
That number coming up in biology is interesting.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
One thing that nature is particularly good at is the development of dynamic, self-organizing systems which post articles to nerdy websites making statements like "One thing that nature is particularly good at is the development of dynamic, self-organizing systems."
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
She looked so different back then that I didn't even realize that she played Grace on 'Wil & Grace'. I just assumed that she had some guest role on it.
Definately, between the two on Wil & Grace, you're right, Megan Mullally is much more curve-alicious. My only defense is that I was talking about how she looked in 'Prey', not in 'Wil & Grace' after she started starving herself to gain acceptence by the gay boys. ('Ned & Stacey'?!!! Is there something you want to tell us, Debra?!!!)
Birds aren't too smart because flying is hard to do.
This doesn't make any sense no matter how many times I read it.
First of, birds are the most intelligent animals after mamals. Flying for a bird is no more difficult then running for a human. Despite their small brains, birds learn to fly way faster then humans learn to walk. Insects also fly and they are definetly dumber then birds. I can make a paper airplane fly and it has no brain power at all. Basic auto pilot on a light aircraft have about as much processing power as a pocket calculator. I've learned to fly airplanes and don't think I've become dumber in the process.
There is almost no correlation between flying and intelligence or processing power. Any correlation that does exist would be positive, not negative.
Nature never has to convert between metric and English units.
word.
256? Isn't that convenient!
I found this interesting but I don't understand some parts of it. So every cell/object will contain the entire genome/code, and will activate some part of the code depending on circumstances. Now I think that such approach will end up taking a lot of space.
Anyone?
Almost all software in container based. Indeed, all of our systems' designs are fundamentally based on the Five Normal Forms.
The world can't be modeled that way.
Instead of containing data object relationships, you need to design your software with relationship objects and connection instances that are in a separate object space.
You get reusability benefits because you don't have to alter the objects when its relationships change. Most of our system maintenance is due to relationship changes, not object changes.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
One thing that nature is particularly good at is the development of dynamic, self-organizing systems.
No, nature is particularly terrible at doing that, but it cranks out so many different attempts over such an enormous time span that it looks good to us lowly humans. The idea of "biomorphic" software generally fails because we don't want to merely operate as a "hand of god" and take a come-what-may attitude, we have specific problems we want our software to solve. If we have a solution in mind, then it doesn't make sense to create a system that takes time/effort to self-organize.
Remind anyone of 'Prey'?
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
Hmmm...seems to me the first use of the term "Biomporphing" was in scientist and SF writer Dr. Charles Pellegrino's 1998 ecological thriller "Dust," I wasn't aware that it has come into use. That was the term in the novel for synthetic life forms like Dinosaurs cloned from recovered DNA, but with modifications to make them smaller and more docile for use as house pets. "Dust" describes a meltdown of the global ecology, one of the symptoms of which is swarms of trillions of suddenly-carniverous Dust Mites that consume whole towns full of people (and animals). This may have inspired Crichton to try for the some of the same scares in his 2002 novel "Prey," although its physically impossible for Crichton's nanites to move as fast as they do in the novel (due to Reynold's number), no so for Dust Mites. It wouldn't be the first time Crichton has borrowed from Pellegrino, who wrote a speculative article on "Dinosaur World Park," a place filled with Dinosaurs cloned from DNA traces on insects in amber in a 1985 issue of Omni, which Crichton acknowledges inspired Jurrasic Park. Strangely enough, the novel "Dust" also features technologies based on spider silk grown from genetically modified corn silk. I wonder if the poster has read this novel? Great read if you're into hard SF and thrillers, BTW.
I suspect that even simple tasks, like controlling a toaster, will become an evolutionary process that will be given its initial operating parameters by larger AI systems.
Not only is that like trying to kill a fly with an elephant gun, but you represent in that statement a deep ignorance of the knowledge that you're trying to convince us all that you possess. You really, really, don't know what you're talking about, do you?
(And yes, I am trolling, and I'm posting AC, but somebody had to get out the cluebat for this one.)
It's a lot faster and more reliable to make a lot of simple yes/no decisions than to try to make a few complex decisions. I'm not sure how to implement that philosophy in a complicated system but it is something to think about.
Neural nets
Go grab those torrents.
You know, you really got my curiosity. You put me on your foes list yesterday, and I've never even talked with you. Weird. "I wonder who this joker is?" I say to myself. So, I go find out. I find out that not only are you NOT a /. troll, you even work in the same geographical area as me. We work within about 10 miles of each other. So, I go read some of your other stuff. I'm curious and I can't help myself. I keep wondering why a reasonable and intelligent guy would bother to make me into a foe.
So, I go tripping through some of the stuff you have out there for work. Then I figured it out. In particular, I don't think you liked the following comment I made in this post:
If Mr. Sowell truly wants a simplified experience he should just go use Apple products, which are already dumbed down and streamlined. But he should be prepared to shell out the extra cash to support Apple's entirely proprietary architectures.
I'm reasonably certain that's the comment that earned your ire based on the kinds of projects I see you have on the web site. It's understandable.
So, let me correct myself:
1. While Apple products probably deserve to be called streamlined, I did go a bit far in calling them dumbed down. I wasn't thinking when I said that, and I was allowing myself to play the stereotype without examining it. The last time I used a Mac was in about 1995, so my impressions of it are out of date and irrelevant by now.
2. Apple's DOES have a proprietary architecture in the sense that I have to buy their hardware to run their OS. There just no denying that. I would be all over OS X if I could run it on x86 and other machine architectures and I didn't have to buy their hardware to use it. Even Microsoft doesn't have as much control over my computing environment as does Apple.
3. HOWEVER, Apple is most definitely not proprietary by virtue of their new OS architecture. You know far more about this than I, but even I can appreciate how having a Unix-like OS under the hood allows a lot of cross-over to and from the open source world.
FWIW - I didn't start out liking Windows and I don't particularly like what Microsoft does in the name of competition. I was a die hard Amiga lover when I hit the marketplace and I spent 5 years in the market hating the tools I needed to use for my employers before the tools were at least high enough quality to make stop missing the Amiga. I suppose OS X would, given its quality today, spoil me again and again make me dissatisfied with Windows. But I'm not sure I can afford that now.
I don't know what I'm trying to accomplish here. I really don't care if you keep me on your foes list. But, I do hate it when I stick my foot in my mouth. I like to correct myself when I do that. Your opinion of me may not change because of this, but I've done what I can to correct myself.
Peace.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
10 SWIM AROUND TANK
20 PRINT "I'll DRIVE, YOU OPERATE THE GUN."
boakes.org
Scientist No. 2 (peppering his food): Oh, dear.
In this movie the idea is originated. Can't you tell a B-movie when you see it? No? This movie should be a little bit closer. Aliens, flatworms, nanorobots, it is all the same.
As with many evolving algorithms, one of the problems is the possibility of hitting a genetic dead-end. And unlike actual nature, the program menageries are typically all of the same type of beast, so it's not too unlikely for a particular design to become rabidly successful for a time and basically wipe out other variants before dying itself. But as long as you force there being some randomness and preservation of diversity, there are some interesting results.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.